Mobile device adoption through smart phones, tablets, etc. has become ubiquitous. The mobile devices communicate on a wireless network, and continuously publish a variety of statistics associated with their operation over time such as location (via global positioning system (GPS), proximate cell towers, etc.), accelerometer data, etc. Across enterprise, consumer, and public safety markets, there is a need to determine an implicit relationship between two entities following dynamic, but similar, routes. Such entities are unrelated and/or unknown to one another except for the dynamic, but similar, routes. For example, in the enterprise space, it would be advantageous to know that a person is on a particular (e.g., the 5:00 pm NW line) train (i.e., the person's route exhibits a high degree of correlation to the route of the train). In the public safety space, it would be advantageous for an officer to determine the identity of a chased suspect whose leading location and route is relatively similar to that of the trailing officer (displaced by a time offset).
Accordingly, there is a need for systems and methods of obtaining streams of parameters from mobile devices and correlating observed routes based thereon.
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The apparatus and method components have been represented where appropriate by conventional symbols in the drawings, showing only those specific details that are pertinent to understanding the embodiments of the present invention so as not to obscure the disclosure with details that will be readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the art having the benefit of the description herein.